Contents

General

These rules are intended to depict TNG-era Trek, although they
could be used for original Trek with few modifications. In attempting
to simulate Star Trek style space battles, I have tried to steer
a compromise, staying relatively "canon" while changing
as few FT rules as possible. I have kept the FT core rules largely
intact, and merely introduced "new" systems that act
a little differently than FT systems. The costs and mass of these
systems are, I believe, balanced within this framework, but could
be unbalanced if you try to export them to "standard"
FT games.

One common complaint among FT gamers is the relative lack of variety
of weapons in Star Trek -- basically just beams and torpedoes.
I have tried to address this by making photon torpedoes operate
distinctly differently than beams, as well as by increasing the
number of non-weapons systems (tractor beams, transporters, etc)
used. On the other hand, I decided to treat phasers and disrupters
as interchangeable; instead I played with the ship designs to
give Federation ships greater firepower at long range, while giving
Klingons greater firepower at short range.

Lastly, a number of people have proposed ways to reflect the "non-military"
nature of Starfleet ships by limiting the number of weapons they
can have and so forth. While this make sense logically, I feel
that it doesn't really reflect the "flavor" of the Star
Trek universe, where any Starfleet ship can beat any alien "warship"
of the same class. It's silly, I know; if you want realism, watch
Babylon 5!

Enough editorializing. On to the rules....

Shields

Type

Cost

Mass

Strength

Standard

1 per ship mass

1 per 20 ship mass

1/3 ship mass

Superior

3 per 2 ship mass

1 per 10 ship mass

½ ship mass

Inferior

1 per 2 ship mass

1 per 30 ship mass

¼ ship mass

Unlike FT screens, ST shields are ablative (i.e. -- shot away
bit by bit). Initially, all damage is absorbed by the shields.
Score the dice rolls as against an unscreened ship but instead
of filling the damage point tracks, record the damage by making
"hash marks" in the top right corner of the ship record
box (opposite the ID number).

Once the shields have absorbed damage equal to half their strength,
draw a line under the marks; shields are then considered to be
at half strength. On subsequent attacks, the shields will absorb
half damage (continue making marks underneath the line you just
drew) while the other half makes it through to the ship itself
and is recorded normally. Round odd numbered damage in the shield's
"favor," so a ship with half strength shields that gets
hit for 3 damage would absorb 2 points with its shields and take
1 point of structural damage.

Once the shields have absorbed damage equal to their strength,
they are down and all damage is applied to the damage
tracks. Note that the shield generator itself may still be knocked
out as a result of threshold checks or needle attacks. (See the
section on damage control below.)

Phasers, Disrupters etc.

Range

0"-6"

6"-12"

12"-18"

A

3d6

2d6

1d6

B

2d6

1d6

-

C

1d6

-

-

Type

Cost

Mass

A

6+4

3

B

4+2

2

C

3+1

1

All are considered the same, and they act as standard beam weapons
in FT, except that they can also be used like needle beams to
attack specific systems. "Gunner, target engines only...
understood?"

Needle attacks require one fire con per target system as well
as functioning enhanced/ superior sensors. Roll the number of
dice indicated above and the targeted system is destroyed on a
6.

Needle attacks cannot be made against ships with shields above
1/2 strength, and ships with shields below 1/2 strength roll 1d6
less than indicated above. (C-batteries firing on 1/2-strength
shields roll 1d6 up to 3".)

Photon Torpedoes

Cost

Mass

Arc

20

3

any single

May be fired in direct-fire mode, in which case they act as pulse
torpedoes in FT, but their damage is absorbed by
shields, the same as beams. Alternately, they may be fired in
a spread (usually when attempting to guestimate
the position of a cloaked ship). In this case they act like a
1-turn missile with an area effect.

Photon spreads are launched after orders are written, but before
any ships are moved. Each torpedo tube may fire 1 spread up to
24" with up to a 2-point turn in mid move. All ships are
then moved, as normal. Once all ships have been moved, all photon
spreads detonate, causing :-

3d6 to all ships within 1"

2d6 to all ships within 2"

1d6 to all ships within 4"

again, they are affected by shields.

Although we know that ships carry a limited number of photon torpedoes,
we've never actually seen anyone run out; so I assume they carry
enough that we don't need to worry about it.

As for quantum torpedoes, I haven't put together any rules for
them; your guess is as good as mine.

Aft Firing Weapons

There are numerous examples of Star Trek ships firing weapons
through their aft arc. Rather than doing away with the FT restriction
altogether, the following compromise is suggested: weapons may
be mounted to fire through a ship's rear arc, but such weapons
cost twice as much as normal and take up 1 more mass than normal
(PSB to reflect special targeting systems required
to compensate for distortion caused by the warp field). Aft-firing
weapons may be 1-arc only, i.e. -multiple-arc weapons may not
include the aft arc.

Warp Drive

In addition to functioning as FTL engines, warp engines are also
used for combat maneuvering. To simulate this, when a ship loses
its warp engine (either to a threshold check or a needle attack)
its thrust rating is halved, as if its drive systems had been
hit. "Aye, we can wallow like a garbage scow...."
If the ship's thrust is already halved, then its thrust is reduced
to zero. Two hits on the impulse engines will also
drop thrust to zero as per FT.

Since practically all ships in Star Trek are warp-driven, I
see no need to change the ship design rules to reflect this: simply
buy thrust and FTL drives as normal. If you add non-warp ships
(perhaps from a less advanced race?), then they should pay for
thrust at twice the usual cost.

Warp Core Breach (optional)

Any time a ship loses its warp drive to a threshold check, it
rolls a die: on 1-4, the warp engines are down, as described above.
A 5 or 6 indicates a warp core breach, and the player must roll
a second die. On a 1-4, (on the second roll) the ship is able
to safely eject the warp core and sustains no damage, but the
warp engine cannot later be repaired by damage control parties.
On a 5 or 6 they fail to eject the core in time and the ship is
disintegrated! (This works out to a 1 in 9 chance of a fatal core
breech anytime a ship loses its warp drive.)

Note that this rule does not apply to damage from
needle attacks! (In theory it should, but that would seriously
unbalance things!) Warp engines lost to needle attacks are merely
considered down as above.

Transporters

Class

Mass

Cost

Capital

1

15

Cruisers

1

10

Escorts & Merchants

1

5

Transporters can be used to beam boarding parties onto enemy ships;
this requires a dedicated fire con and functioning active sensors.
The target ship must be within 9" and its shields must be
down; the boarding ship must lower its shields for
that turn.

You then must compare the ships' velocities and courses as follows:
if the ships' courses differ by 1 point or less, the difference
between their velocities must be 6 or less for transport to be
possible; if their courses differ by 2-4 points, the average
of their velocities must be 6 or less; if their courses differ
by 5 or 6 points, the sum of their velocities must
be 6 or less.

Example

A Klingon ship is on heading 12, velocity 5 when it decloaks within
9" of 3 Federation ships: F1 is on heading 11, F2 is on heading
3 and F3 is on heading 7. All are at velocity 3 with shields down.
F1's heading is one point off, so the difference is 2. F2 is 3
points off, so the average is 4. F3 is 5 points off, so the sum
is 8. The Klingons may board F1 or F2, but not F3.

Boarding Parties

Instead of the MT concept of a small party of heavily armed-and-armored
boarders, Star Trek boarding parties are larger, but armed mainly
with hand weapons. However, this evens out, so the standard MT
rules for resolving boarding actions can be used, i.e. -military
ships field 1 factor for every 4 current damage points, and merchant
ships field 1 for every 10.

If the attackers win, they are in control of the ship & crew,
but are assumed to be locked out of the computer. The attacker
may beam back the survivors, leaving 1 factor on the captured
ship as a prize crew.

At the end of each turn thereafter, roll 1d6; on a 6 the prize
crew has broken the computer lock-out and may fly the ship. They
may not use any weapons or other systems - they don't have enough
crew to fight the ship, merely enough to escape.

Klingon boarding parties (optional)

Klingons take boarding actions much more seriously than most other
races! As a result of this, Klingon ships field 1 factor for every
3 current damage points.

Tractor Beams

Class

Strength

Cost

Mass

A

18

15

3

B

12

10

2

C

6

5

1

Using a tractor beam requires a dedicated fire con, which may
not be used for anything else that turn. Tractor beams are activated
during fire resolution phase, although the effects do not take
place until the following movement phase.

Subtract the range to target (in inches) from the tractor's strength;
also subtract 1 for every 10 points of shields the target has
currently. The result (x") is the effective strength of the
beam. On the following movement phase, both ships are moved normally
in accordance with their written orders, and then the tractor
drag is applied as follows.

If the two ships are the same size, both are dragged 1/2 x"
towards each other. If the size difference is one class, the smaller
ship is dragged x" and the larger ship is dragged 1/4 x".
If the size difference is two classes, the smaller ship is dragged
2x" and the larger ship is not dragged. (Note that it makes
no difference whether the grabbing ship is the larger
or smaller of the two.)

Example

A capital ship with a class-B tractor is trying to seize an escort
that is 7" away; the escort's shields currently have 8 points.
Subtracting 7 for range and 1 for shields gives the tractor an
effective strength of 4. On the next turn, both ships are moved
in accordance with their written orders; the escort is then dragged
8" towards the capital. The capital is not dragged. Had the
target ship been a cruiser, it would have been dragged 4"
and the capital 1". If both ships had been capitals, they
would each have been dragged 2".

Note that range, effective strength and arc are determined before
any ships are moved; if a ship's written orders take it temporarily
outside the tractor's range or arc, the tractor lock
is not broken. (The effect of the beam is continuous, after all.)
On the next turn, effective strength and arc are determined anew,
based on the new positions.

Cloaking Devices

Cost

Mass

3 per 2 ship mass

1 per 18 ship mass

Unlike MT cloaks, ST cloaks allow a ship to use passive sensors
while cloaked. To cloak a ship, the player writes in his orders
that he will cloak that turn, but does not have to specify how
many turns he will remain cloaked. All ships are then moved normally.
The cloaking ship may not use any weapons or shields for that
turn.

When the cloaking player activates that ship during
the fire resolution phase, the ship's miniature is removed from
the table and replaced by a marker. The next ship activated by
the opposing player may shoot at the cloaking ship (assuming it
is in range/arc, etc) but no other ships activated after that
may. This gives the opposing player one shot as
the ship is cloaking.

While cloaked, a player writes his moves normally, but must estimate
his ship's position on the table. The cloaked ship may not use
any weapons, shields or other systems except for sensors. (There
are examples of cloaked ships using transporters, but to allow
this in the game would be unbalancing IMHO.) It
may not be targeted by phasers/ disrupters, but is subject to
damage from area effect weapons like photon torpedo spreads. Cloaked
ships may use passive sensors normally.

They may also use active sensors, but doing so reveals the ship's
position; the player moves his cloaking point marker to the cloaked
ship's current position in accordance with the orders he has written.
This position fix is not exact enough for the cloaked ship to
be targeted with phasers/disrupters, although the opposing player
now knows where to launch his photon spreads! Ships may attempt
to detect cloaked ships (see the sensor rules below).

If you are playing a game with a lot of cloaked ships and do
not have a referee, it may be helpful to have a simple grid pattern
laid out on the gaming area. Players can then plot their cloaked
ships on a sheet of graph paper (not shown to his enemy), which
can be used to determine the effects of photon torpedoes and sensor
sweeps.

To decloak, the player writes in the ship's orders that it is
decloaking. All uncloaked ships are then moved normally. During
the fire resolution phase, when the player chooses to activate
the decloaking ship, he announces that the ship is decloaking
and plots the ship's moves from the point where it cloaked (or
from its last known position, if it had been revealed in some
way). The ship's miniature is then placed at its current location.
The ship may then fire any offensive weaponry, but may not use
any shields that turn. Any opposing ships that have not yet fired
may then fire on the uncloaked (& unshielded!) ship during
their turns.

Cloak Displacement (optional)

If you are using graph paper to plot cloaked movement (as described
above), or if you are playing a PBM/PBeM game, cloaked players
will be able to compute their positions exactly. If you wish to
introduce further positional uncertainty (say, due to the slight
distortion the cloak causes), then when a ship decloaks, roll
1d6 for every turn of cloaked movement and score the dice like
beam attacks, i.e. -- 1-3: 0, 4-5: 1, 6: 2. The decloaking ship
is then displaced that many inches in a random direction.

Sensors

Almost all ST ships have at least enhanced sensors, and most Federation
ships have superior sensors. Passive sensors work the same as
in FT/MT, but will also reveal the general shield status (full
strength, below half, or down) of any ships within 36." Active
sensors work as in FT/MT, with the following addition:

Scanning for cloaked ships

Ships may use active sensors to sweep an arc for
cloaked ships. Each ship may sweep 1 arc. (Cruisers & capitals
may use their additional scans normally on other (uncloaked) ships,
but may only sweep 1 arc.) Any cloaked ships in the designated
arc out to 54" are detected on a roll of 6 on 1d6, modified
as follows:

Superior sensors: +2

Enhanced sensors: +0

Basic sensors: -2

-1 for each 6" range to the cloaked ship

+1 for each 2" velocity of the cloaked ship

+2 for each point of thrust the cloaked ship used that turn

+2 if the scanning ship had detected the cloaked ship on the
previous turn

Again, the location of the cloaked ship is not precise enough
to be targeted directly. Note that sensor sweeps will reveal the
scanning ship to any ships in range & arc, just as with regular
active scans.

Damage Control

Damage control parties may attempt to restore damaged shields.
When shields are below half strength, each successful repair roll
on the shields restores 1-3 points up to half strength. Once the
shields are above ½ , each successful repair roll only restores
1 point up to full strength. If the shield generator fails a threshold
check and is later repaired, the shields will be restored at the
strength they had before they were knocked out. (You cannot repair
the shield generator and restore the shield strength at the same
time.)

Optional

Federation damage control parties always seem to be miracle
workers. To reflect this, if a damage control party has
been working unsuccessfully on the same system for 3 or more turns,
it will repair the system on a roll of 5 or 6.